the one reaction i experienced in my ten days in today's china, respect. i had profound respect for what this country has done with itself in such an incredibly short time. it's only just begun. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. the national basketball association is promising an announcement tomorrow afternoon in its investigation into donald sterling, the owner of the nba's los angeles clippers. this after an audio recording was made public in which a man, alleged to be sterling, is heard saying some, well, really jaw-droppingly racist stuff. since the audio was released friday night, corporate sponsors have been rushing to sever or suspend their ties in the team. donald sterling's own public record has come under new scrutiny as a scandal becomes a machining crisis not only for the clippers but an existential

crisis for the entire league. reporters who cover professional basketball already understood things about donald sterling. that thanks to this week's audio dump the rest of the country is now being introduced to. >> yeah, it bothers me a lot that you want to promo -- broadcast that you're associating with black people. do you have to? >> over the weekend, the world all got to know l.a. clippers owner donald sterling a little better. late friday night the gossip website, tmz sports, published audio of someone purported to be sterling talking to his then girlfriend. >> you can sleep with them, you can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. the little i ask you is not to promote it on that and not to bring them to my games. >> he told her not to bring black people to his games. nbc news has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the recording. deadspin released an extended version of the exchange.

>> do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you? >> do i know? i support them and give them food and clothes and cars and houses. who gives it to them? does someone else give it to them? do i know that i have -- who makes the game, do i make the game or do they make the game? >> the statements quickly led to speculation about what action the nba and national basketball players association would take before the clippers sunday playoff game. the clippers organization released a statement saying mr. sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with or does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. clippers center deandre jordan uploaded an all black photo to instagram that was widely interpreted as a protest against sterling. chris paul, acting as his role as head of the players association said they would be looking into next steps. the nba said it would be

investigating the disturbing and offensive statements. but as many close observers pointed out, sterling had a history of alleged racism, including a multimillion dollar payout obtained by the department of justice to settle allegations he discriminated against african-americans in apartment complexes he owned. at the time, it was the largest such payout in history. one that the nba was certainly aware of. >> don't just blame donald sterling for this. this is a guy they have kept around for three plus decades. >> there's been a pattern of terrible behavior, and racism. nobody is surprised that this happened. >> charles barkley and others agree, saying the nba has to act. >> when you're in a position of power and you can take jobs and economic opportunity from people, that's what crosses the line. but we cannot have an nba owner discriminating against a league that -- we're a black league. >> i think the league needs to take a very long, hard look on whether this guy should continue being an owner or not.

>> lakers star kobe bryant tweeted i couldn't play for him. the biggest name in the league, lebron james, said sterling would have to go. >> there's no room for that in our game. we can't have that. we can't have it from a player, an owner, a fan, so on and so on. it doesn't matter if you're black, white or hispanic or whatever the case may be. >> by sunday the controversy reached the other side of the world, the president weighing in from malaysia. >> i don't think i have to interpret those statements for you. they kind of speak for themselves. >> that afternoon all eyes were on the clippers playoff game against the golden state warriors. >> there will be certain player that say will be great and there will be certain players that have been thinking about this all night and they can't function. >> magic johnson, who is mentioned in the purported recording of sterling said the 80-year-old billionaire shouldn't even own a team. >> he shouldn't own a team anymore. he should stand up and say i don't want to own a team anymore. >> donald sterling did not attend the game, while his estranged wife sat courtside. as the team walked out, they threw their warmup jerseys at

center court. >> it's a unified statement from the clipper players wearing their warmup shirts inside out so the word "clippers" are not across their chests. >> they went on to lose the game 118-97. to some, their silent protest wasn't strong enough. in the meantime, the players association has demanded that sterling be banned from all playoff games. it's now up to the nba to act. a published recording may be new, but allegations of racism against donald sterling are very much not. joining me now, liam rhoden, sports columnist and author of "40 million dollar slaves." bill, i thought about your book and thought about that title and thought donald sterling had read it and interpreted it as a proactive model that he was sort of explicitly endorsing in that conversation that is alleged to be him on the tape. >> or maybe, chris, maybe he was testing it, you know. you know, i've got a lot of comments about the book which

back when i wrote it, people were come on, guys are making $40 million, how can they be slaves? the whole point of the book is about power. is that wealth doesn't always equate with power. you have a league with a lot of well-paid guys but the question is who pays you? if somebody can afford to pay 15 of you $10 million, how much money are they making? and so i think this is a very interesting point and a lot of things. people wondering what are the players going to do? what can the players do? some people said the protest wasn't enough. you know, there are a lot of my colleagues who would like to see something more dramatic. you know, like striking or burning the uniforms or banning. i personally think, chris, the players are in a tough position. >> yeah. >> they're contractually obligated, but i do think that this is a time for fans, consumers basically, to speak

out. i mean if you embrace this, you know, then go to the games. but if this really bothers you, then stay away. you know, that's hard because people are addicted to the spectacle of the nba playoffs. >> there's two things about sterling, i thought, that are pretty shocking. one is what the record has been and the fact that people have turned the other way. the other is here's a guy who there's a strong empirical case is the worst owner in all of professional sports. i mean has the losingest record, is horrible at what he does and yet you want to talk about power, you want to talk about wealth, he's still in the club. the team is appreciated hugely and the question is how can everyone hold this guy to account. how did the nba let this go on so long. >> you know, i'm thinking because of what he just said, because he was so terrible, a lot of the owners in the west wanted him to be there because he kept them from being in last place.

that's like alabama used to say thank god for mississippi. you know, i think a lot of owners are please let there be sterling because the franchise was so cheap, so terribly run so as long as it was there, you knew if you were portland, the lakers, you know, seattle when they were out there, well, we're not going to be in last place because of the clippers. now the irony is that they're really turning the corner. they really are, because of doc, because of chris paul, you know, griffin, they really are becoming a very viable franchise. so it's -- >> so then the question becomes does the league has it, as i understand, in the constitution of the league, there is the power to take the franchise away and there's certainly the power to suspend him. i think back to what happened to marge schott and her comments with the cincinnati reds about hitler and anti-semitic comments and she was suspended for a year. what do you anticipate this owners club is going to do to

one of their own? >> i think if in fact these comments are his, there are actually two provisions. there are two provisions in the constitution. one that allows the commissioner to step in when there's not really a penalty for an unprecedented act to act. and another one governs an act of a nonplayer. you know, so i think that if in fact this is true, and because there's so much heat on adam silver, poor adam silver, i think that at the very least there's going to be a long suspension. probably a ban from probably day-to-day operations. but, you know, the question is how do you really hurt a billionaire? what do you -- >> particularly if you make him sell a team that he bought for about $17 million and is probably worth between $800 million and $1 billion now, which also says something about power and wealth and how those two might or might not be related.

william rhoden from "the new york times," thank you so much. joining me now, ben jealous. he's a partner at the kapor center for social impact. here's a guy who's got a heinous record. i will say this, a record that is alleged to be heinous in court filings in civil suits. >> sure. >> who was honored by the local chapter of the naacp, who was going to be honored again. and it wasn't like people didn't know this guy's record. i want to read you a column written back in may, 2009, about the local chapter of the l.a. naacp giving him an award after this settlement, the largest settlement ever on fair housing discrimination. naacp air brushed this away, simply said sterling has been a gem in giving oodles of tickets away to needy inner city kids. ladling out some cash to charities and sports camps for them. how did this happen?

>> look, there's an investigation going on right now and it needs to happen. and the association needs to make sure that this can't happen in the future. i mean it's -- you know, there are 1200 different, if you will, bodies throughout the naacp who get to choose, you know, honored at the dinner. we're active in 1200 communities. how this decision was made once, but twice, thoroughly i don't understand. >> it's leaving you speechless. >> really, really, really. and so, i think the association is doing ultimately what needs to be done. they're doing an investigation and they have to come out and figure out how this cannot -- how to ensure this cannot happen again. but what frustrates me, chris, each time that one of these things happen is that there seems to be an inverse relationship in the media between the number of people

impacted by an act of racism and how much the national media is willing to talk about it. i mean the association sued an entire city in los angeles county for housing discrimination two years ago and it was like crickets from the national media. they just didn't want to talk about it. the president picks up our charge or now the association's charge to go after the persistent discrimination against long-term unemployed people in this country who were disproportionately black and brown. we don't really talk about it. the troy davis case, it took 15 years to get the national media to focus on it. >> or the case of this guy. i mean here you have -- you have a lawsuit alleging deeply heinous, malicious instances of racial discrimination in which, again, a lawsuit that was settled for an undisclosed amount in which it is alleged that he is directing his people to bar black tenants, to harass

black and latino tenants out of buildings that he is renting to, in the case of an elderly woman who was half paralyzed, not answering her calls for repairs in a flooded apartment. deeply heinous allegations and that got 1/1,000th of the coverage that this taped conversation will get. >> that's absolutely right and the president of the naacp said that she suspects money was a factor here. that the local branch was trying to raise money, they're volunteers, and this is something who they see as being generous in his charity towards the community. if persistently having trouble. but that frankly isn't good enough. she's absolutely right, there needs to be an investigation. we need to make sure this can't happen again. but in the meantime we as a country have to get beyond our fixation just simply on the racism of individuals and actually look at the racism of institutions. we need to be asking ourselves if this guy who employs all these people are saying this --

>> how many other people are saying things like this that aren't being taped and released is the first thing that popped in my mind, particularly when i thought about owners, the owners of the other nba teams. lord knows what bosses around the country and owners around the country are saying in private conversations that's being taped, civil and human rights activist, ben jealous, thank you. >> thank you. coming up, more on the reaction to donald sterling's comments. former nba player etan thomas will be my guest next. stick around.

today comedian bill maher tweeted his reaction to the donald sterling story. sterling def a racist, but take away his team? including should the clippers have played yesterday? calm down. being an a-hole is still legal in america. we'll talk more about that when bill joins me here tomorrow night. you don't want to miss it.

do you make a message as a member of that clipper team or what is the reaction? what happens when you take the floor the next day? >> well, you know, you still have to go out and do your job. donald sterling is one man and i agree with chuck, he owns the team, but there's a lot more at stake. >> what we have to understand is all these young men need their jobs, though, right? and they need to take care of themselves and their families. so we can't blame doc rivers or the players. they have to do their job to take care of their families and play the game that they love. >> despite what was said on tnt and espn over the weekend, playing the game and doing their jobs wasn't a foregone conclusion for the clippers before yesterday. there was a question of whether they should have boycotted the game, refused to take the court. it was something the clippers

reportedly did consider. ultimately they took the floor after a silent protest. they turned their practice jerseys inside out that seemed to discard their public identity and just a few moments ago the miami heat did the same thing. like the heat tonight, once sunday's game started, the clippers put their team's game jerseys on and more or less that was that. now, under the circumstances there was no obvious choice for what the clippers should have done. now there's a report the clippers are considering making a stronger statement during tomorrow's game in los angeles. there certainly was no shortage of criticism for their muted symbolic protest on sunday. but then again, everyone has got someone that signs their paycheck, and it is easy to judge how other people react to their own boss. so i want to talk to a former nba player who had a reputation for being unafraid to speak up and speak out, even when he was playing. joining me now is former nba

player, etan thomas. he's authored "more than an athlete." what was your reaction to the symbolic gesture during warmups the clippers did on sunday? >> well, i understood. they made it very clear that they were going to give adam silver, the new commissioner, his time to do his due process. kevin johnson, who is now speaking for the players association, said he's going to give him by the start of game five. that's tomorrow. everybody i know wanted them to have a bigger statement, but they're working with the commissioner to see exactly what he is going to come down with as a punishment. and, you know, the commissioner said that he was just as appalled by this as everybody else was, but there needs to be something else in place. just because the way that the players are held to a certain standard. so you can be suspended from a team and the only thing they have to give, the only thing they have to give is conduct detrimental to the team. there has to be the same standard to the rest of the employees of the nba. for the gm, for the presidents, for the ceos like donald

sterling. they have to be held for conduct detrimental to the nba, because that's what his statements actually have done, have been detrimental to the entire nba. to the image of the nba and now economically, as you see different companies pulling out of sponsorship by the truckloads. and so what he's doing is really hurting the entire league as a whole, so there needs to be something in place. there needs to be checks and balances but they're waiting to see what commissioner adam silver is going to do tomorrow. so really the ball is really in his court. >> it's interesting you're putting this on the commissioner and the fellow owners as opposed to the players. i had a somewhat similar reaction because i felt like i heard people condemning the players for not standing up or speaking out more strongly. my instinct was in some ways it was a little strange to put it on them. at the same time, if there was ever a moment that you could have done something dramatic and not had anyone question it, if they had boycotted or something like that, that would have been the time, right? >> well, yeah, but you have to

let the system play itself out. i mean they're giving everything time. adam silver said to just give him a little time to do the due process. he's going to do whatever he needs to do and then make an announcement. the announcement comes tomorrow, so just be patient. after he does his announcement tomorrow, if it's a little bit slap on the wrist, then it's time for more drastic things. but -- and there's precedent for adam silver. there's what happened in cincinnati in '99 with marge schott and they removed her, made her give up her -- sell her interests in the cincinnati reds after her racist comments. now, it's a little bit tough right now because we know what donald sterling originally paid for when he bought the clippers and what it's worth now. he paid, what, 15, maybe $17 million and now it's half a billion that he would net so that's not really a punishment, you know. i mean that's not really a punishment. so what needs to happen is he needs to really feel it in his pocket, which is, you know, maybe they could have it to be

open like what the green bay packers did and sell it to the public. or just remove him. you know what they should do is have him give him back what he originally purchased it for and send him on his way. >> buy the team for $17 million. >> that's what they should do. >> i should read the official statement from doc rivers who's out with a lengthy statement tonight. saying i'd like to reiterate how disappointed i am in the comments of donald sterling. i had a meeting with members of our organization and we want to make the right decision here. we're doing our very best. we know fans are in a dilemma as well. we want them to cheer for their players and their team. from the fans that i have heard from, that's how they feel. i keep coming back, this is my team, these are my players i'm cheering for, that's not going to change. i hope staples center is packed. players are in the middle of it and have to deal with it. i keep coming back to that line in the sterling tape that's pretty profound not just about basketball but the relationship between employers and employees, between labor and capital, workers and bosses.

he says who makes the game? do they make the game or do i make the game? and the fact of the matter is, what is the answer to that question? because that's kind of a profound question. when you were playing, did you feel like you made the game, etan thomas, in a tremendously talented athlete in the top of athletes or did you feel like the owner made the game? >> this is the problem, that he thinks that he's bigger than he is and he's more important than he is. they don't come there to see him, they come to see chris paul, blake griffin, jamal crawford and deandre jordan. not to see him sitting in his row with his girlfriend. that's not what they pay their money to come see. but he is a representative of a much bigger problem. some people say who cares if he is a racist. but when you're in a position of power like he is, when you're able to inflict that racism like he did in the discrimination lawsuit, that was the biggest discrimination settlement in l.a. history.

belongs to him to the tune of $2.7 million. when you have a history of racism, you shouldn't be in another position where you can assert that racism again. when child sex offenders move into a new neighborhood, everybody is known that they are child sex offenders and they have to register so they can't be in positions of power and hurt people who hurt children. i think donald sterling needs that same provision where they can't be in positions because it's a lot bigger than just him having a problem with black people. regular white guy having a problem with black people. no, he's in a position to hurt people and there's no place in the nba for that. >> i'm imagining a kind of like drive down -- road in beverly hills ringing door bells announcing that he is a racist. hi, i'm donald sterling, moving into the neighborhood and i'm a racist. >> you can look in court documents and see that. >> those are complaints in a lawsuit but yes, etan thomas, always, always wonderful to have you.

>> thanks for having me. coming up, vice news reporter simon ostrovsky was released last week. he joins me to talk about why he wants to go back there, ahead.

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simon ostrovsky is someone we've relied on to get firsthand accounts of what is going on in ukraine and he's done some fantastic reporting from that country, in particular from the

dangerous epicenter of what may be a slow motion russian take overof eastern ukraine. last monday simon was abducted by armed pro-russian militants. just hours before his abduction, simon was interviewing a man who "the new york times" was saying was a russian special forces soldier, evidence that russian special forces are indeed, as long suspected, leading the armed takeover in eastern ukraine. simon asked the bearded man if he was the russian special forces officer identified in "the new york times." [ speaking foreign language ] >> i've just seen my first russian passport on an armed man here in eastern ukraine. he's from the kuban region of russia. "the new york times" showed a picture of a man who looks like him from georgia in 2008 who was part of the russian special

forces, claiming that he was that man, but it seems that he's somebody else. but he is actually from russia. >> again, about one hour after filming that report in which simon was working to uncover the official secret most zealously guarded, russia involved in eastern ukraine, this happened. >> when we got to the final checkpoint, which was literally maybe 300, 400 yards away from our hotel, a man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with my face on it, shined a light on my face, showed it to his friends. his face lit up and he's like i got him, i got him, this is him. >> that terrifying moment was the beginning of a three-day abduction. joining me it's my great pleasure to welcome safe and found vice news reporter simon ostrovsky. it's great to meet you in person. i feel like i know you, i have this connection to you. we were very upset about your abduction so i'm so glad you're here safe and sound.

>> it's good to be back in new york. i want to say thanks for being such a strong advocate for me while i was being held there because i know now since i've come out you've been on your show a couple of times mentioning me and i really appreciate that. >> well, i just happen to know that the people's mayor is a huge msnbc fan and delivering those direct camera addresses would get this all wrapped up. >> i think that's what did it. >> so take me through this. you're at the checkpoint. i've got him, i've got him. who's at the checkpoint? who's manning that checkpoint and why do they have your picture? >> my picture had been circulating for about a week and a half before on the internet on russian social net works with a message saying i was a liar working for the kiev authorities, paid propagandaist. so somebody on the internet was trying to get it out there that i was criticizing the pro-russia stance in eastern ukraine. the people at the checkpoint, they're locals mostly, wearing camouflage with guns.

one of them had a machete, another guy had a shotgun, a couple of them had ak-47s. at the checkpoints it's mostly youngsters but it's at the security headquarters where they took me later where the really scary guys came into play. >> and what happened there? >> i was led to the security headquarters. they blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back. led me down into a cellar and two or three guys beat me up for the next sort of ten minutes, beating me like on my torso, clapping me on the head with their hands and telling me that they would shoot me, threatening to kill me essentially and telling me that if i died, nobody would ever find my body or remember me. >> and was this to terrify you? was this to try to get you to confess to the fact you were a spy? what do you think they were trying to do? >> at that point in time, i think they were trying to scare me because they knew that they were going to hold me so they wanted me to behave.

and by intimidating me very early on, you know, the threat of more physical violence would mean that i'd cooperate with whatever they wanted me to do. but i think the whole greater purpose of what they did was to intimidate me and other journalists more generally from criticizing the pro-russia forces. >> so who are -- this is the thing. when we are following a story it's like who the heck is the people's mayor. i want to play some questions of your abduction. [ speaking foreign language ] >> who is this guy? who are these people? >> as far as i know, he's a local businessman from slovansk who had a soap factory that he ran and somehow he rose to the top of this chaos. whether he was chosen by

whatever forces were at play here or whether he just sat himself up as the boss of the town, i don't know. but until a few weeks ago, nobody knew his name. >> and he is now effectively running the town with thugs that are abducting a journalist and beating him up. >> he's calling himself the people's mayor. nobody actually voted for him. but he's got gangs of armed men hanging russian flags on top of ukrainian buildings, manning checkpoints, abducting people and holding hostages. he's held over a dozen hostages so far. >> what is his name? >> his name is pennamariof. >> the big question that looms all over this is the kind of crypto nature of what's happening. in crimea it was troops at the airport one day with no flag on their uniform and all of a sudden these folks are showing

up with guns and there's questions of are these russians? is this russian intelligence service and special forces? having been on the ground, what is your answer to that $64,000 question? >> it's actually a lot more frightening what's happening in eastern ukraine now compared to what happened in crimea because it was regular russian forces. that's pretty much confirmed that were operating in crimea. they may not have been wearing flags, but they had trucks with russian license plates on them and all of the equipment of the russian military and behaved like military units, very professionally. in eastern ukraine what we have is this ragtag army of god knows who. you don't know who they're taking orders from and if they're taking any orders at all and that's the scariest thing because they may not be answering to anybody. i met the bearded man that you showed in the video. he's a russian citizen, but, you know, whether he was sent there by russia or whether he came of his own accord, that's an open question. who are some of these men?

well, until we see their faces and i.d. documents, we can't know for sure. and that just gives a lot of plausible deniability to russia and it means that there's no one to talk to when these kind of situations like mine take place. >> are you going to go back? >> i'd very much like to go back because we would like to continue covering the story. we've been covering ukraine since the protests began in kiev in the winter, and the story is far from over. we need to follow it through so we can see how it plays out. >> for the love of god, please be careful when you go back and come back on my show. >> thanks very much. >> vice news reporter simon ostrovsky. there's new video from ukraine and more from simon posted on vicenews.com. you should definitely check that out. don't go away. so we gave people the power of the review. and now angie's list is revolutionizing local service again. you can easily buy and schedule services

from top-rated providers. conveniently stay up to date on progress. and effortlessly turn your photos into finished projects with our snapfix app. visit angieslist.com today. ♪ it would be a scary process... truecar made it very easy... for me to negotiate, because i didn't really need to do any negotiating at all. save time, save money, and never overpay. visit truecar.com coming up, congressman michael grimm was indicted today on fraud charges. before that happened he was famous for a couple of things.

he was making headlines for a very rare kind of conversion. it turns out i was part of that conversion. i'll explain next.

we're going to fight tooth and nail until i am fully exonerated. so let me be perfectly clear. i will not abandon my post or the wonderful people who entrusted me to represent them. >> congressman, very simply, are you a crook? >> no. >> we are not going to address the charges at this time. he has the presumption of innocence and it will be handled in a court of law. >> congressman michael grimm was defiant today after surrendering to fbi agents and being indicted on federal fraud charges for allegedly underreporting wages and payroll at a new york city restaurant called healthalicious that grimm ran before he entered congress. he was also accused of lying under oath when questioned which began by focusing on his campaign fund-raising. before the indictment, of course, michael grimm was most

famous for this interaction with reporter michael scotta. >> congressman michael grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. we wanted to get him on camera on that but he as you saw refused to talk about that. back to you. >> let me clear, you do that to me again -- >> oddly enough, i have been spending a lot of time with michael grimm over the past year. a team of producers from the "years of living dangerously" and i followed grimm's response to hurricane sandy and traced his trajectory on the issue of climate change and something amazing happened over the course of our time with him. republican michael grimm went from being a climate change denialist, someone who rejected the overwhelming scientific consensus to coming around. even more remarkable than his change of heart on climate

change was the exchange i was able to have with him afterwards, which was by far hands down the most honest i have ever seen a sitting member of congress be about politics while the camera was rolling. >> last time you and i spoke you said the jury was still out. >> yes. >> on the climate science. do you still feel that way? >> after speaking with bob english, it made me do my own research and i looked at some of the stuff that he sent over and my staff looked at the vast majority of respected scientists say that it's conclusive, the evidence is clear. so i don't think the jury is out. >> the basic story of we're putting carbon in the atmosphere, the planet is getting warmer. that's going to make the sea levels rise. the basic story of that you pretty much agree with, right? >> sure. there's no question that the oceans have risen, right? and the climate change part is a real part of it. the problem that we're going to have right now, there's no oxygen left in the room in washington right now for another big debate. that's the reality.

between immigration, tax reform -- >> i don't disagree. but let me ask you -- >> it's just not going to take front stage. >> but there's a study coming out, because this gets precisely to the point. if you take just the amount of sea level rise and factor into what the sandy storm surge was, this study says you've got about 25 square miles of flooding that wouldn't have happened. so if in three years from now there's another one of these storms that takes out another 72,000 homes, it's like at what point does this become the priority? >> washington is not real life. you see you're talking the substance and the science. >> right. >> and my point to you is irrelevant. >> right, right. >> irrelevant. you have to first get them to the table to say let's work together. >> so then what's your role in getting them to do that? if you told me there's too much other stuff going on in washington right now, we can't get sandy relief, you would say sorry, excuse me language, [ bleep ]. and i'm saying the people on the sidelines, there are going to be more storms and they're going to be worse unless we get our act

together. can you sit down with fellow republicans and say, look, come to my district. we have water in places it shouldn't have been. >> yes. but not while everyone is saying immigration, taxes and members of congress don't want to talk about anything else. >> and 20 years from now, you and i are going to have a conversation where we look back, i really believe this. and it's like what do you -- what do you think about when you think about that conversation 20 years from now about where you were. where your personal voice was of leadership. >> what i'm telling you is it's much bigger than me. i don't think that humans in america, americans have the will to do it. >> but that's a terribly depressing statement. >> it may be, but it's true. >> but we have the will to settle the frontier, we had the will to land on the moon. >> if you think my generation or the generation after me has that, i think you're living in fantasyland. they don't. they don't. >> i wonder how you are going to look back at yourself as a member of the united states congress if history unfolds in the way that i think the science

says it does and makes these distinctions between the people that actually had the fortitude to stand up and say the unpopular thing and those who didn't. history judges those people incredibly harshly. those who met the biggest challenge of their time and people who didn't. >> the big takeaway from that exchange is, well, pretty discouraging. this idea that even people who think we need to do something about climate change feels there's no appetite to do it. that the unfolding disaster just sits there, hovering over our heads like an eternally unchecked item on the global to do list. well, there's a group of people who are doing a pretty amazing job of refusing to take later for an answer when it comes to climate change. actress daryl hannah is one of those people. i'm going to talk to her, next.

last week, we witnessed the implosion of one-time right wing hero cliven bundy. he was protesting the federal government for trying to charge him a heavily subsidized fee for letting his cows graze on land he didn't own, federal land. but there was another group of ranchers out protesting last week who got way, way less attention but who were attempting something far more honorable. they were trying to convince the government not to take the land they actually own away and allow a big old company to build a pipeline through it. the ranchers are part of a group called the cowboy-indian alliance which gather to protest against the proposed keystone pipeline.

last week the u.s. state department delayed a decision on whether to approve the pipeline, likely until after the midterm elections. standing with the protesters on the national mall was actress, environmental activist, daryl hannah. she joins me now. it's great to have you here. >> thank you very much. >> so i want you to start out by responding to what congressman grimm said in that interview which is basically, eh, what are you going to do? there's lots of issues out there. people talk about this stuff, there's no will to tackle this. >> well, there's no political will because of the citizens united decision and the mccutcheon amendment which means the government is for corporations instead of which the people, which it's supposed to be. but i think in terms of the public, the public has just been barraged by disinformation for all of these years, so i completely disagree. i think once the public gets informed, i mean we see it with the keystone issue right now. you see both the conservatives and liberals coming together and working together to work against this thing because they realize that this is a foreign company coming in to take advantage of our lands, our water, our soils, to get their product to market

for private product so they can put it on the global market for the highest bidder. >> i like this distinction between political -- you know, political will on capitol hill and public will. >> well, we're living in a very different type of democracy than we think that we do, you know. we are now living in a democracy where it costs a billion dollars to run for president. that's ludicrous. this is no longer the democracy that we all kind of, you know, believe in and agreed to. it is not -- it is no longer a government for the people by the people. it is now for the corporation by the corporation. and we need to take our power back, our renewable power back. >> there was this -- and the event in washington, this cowboy-indian alliance, you have ranchers there and folks who are opposing it who own farmland in nebraska along with the aquifer there, you have first nations

stretching up into canada, their ancestral land that is being taken. what was the scene like there? >> it was actually -- it was beautiful. it was very serious. there was almost a solemn nature to it because i think because the ranchers and farmers who have been affected, there is a farm today, this very day that's being dragged into court by this foreign company, transcanada, in order to take his land on eminent domain on a project that hasn't even been approved. it's insane. and then you have first nations communities up in canada who are experiencing the tar sands and having cancer rates at 400 times their historical rate. and you have the native american communities who have already had their water compromised by past uranium mills and mines and now

are looking at, you know, drought-ridden lands that are also, you know, endangering their precious and very dwindling water that they have left. and so this is -- the demonstrations were almost like a prayer rather than like a sort of shouting type of an event. it was quite beautiful. >> to people that say you activists are making too much of this, there's all sorts of ways. we've got to have a global solution, carbon tax, this one pipeline won't make or break things, what do you say to that? >> well, we've moved toward extreme extraction methods. deep water drilling, mountain top removal, fracking, tar sands. there's even one permitted in utah now, you know. and if this pipeline goes through, they're going to expand the tar sands five times so it will be the size of the state of florida. we're talking a strip mine the size of the state of florida. they use not only carcinogenic

chemicals. there's so many elements that make this pipeline -- >> this key kind of turning point. >> yes, a key turning point to say we need to switch our infrastructure to renewable energy and solve the climate without shifting our practices. that is all, the rachel maddow show starts right now. thanks for joining us this hour. happy monday. example number one, football. this is tom udall, a democratic senator from the great state of new mexico. his dad, his father was secretary of the interior under jfk. john f. kennedy won the presidency and the election in 1960. he went to washington and was sworn in as president in january, 1961. but the other big new thing that happened in washington, d.c.